Ricky Person’s breakout performance was “a long time coming” for the Wolfpack

Ricky Person has arrived.

The freshman RB who played in the season opener vs. James Madison, but sat out the past two games with a hamstring injury, had his coming out party vs. UVA.

Person ran the ball 14 times for 108 yards (an average of 7.7 yards per carry) and broke off this big run late in the 2nd quarter.

It’s not like this wasn’t expected from Ricky Person. He was a 4-star recruit coming out of high school and was the #2 ranked RB in his entire class. He put up a massive senior season and even stole the show at the US Army All-American Bowl.

What makes this performance even more exciting is that it comes at a time when NC State was needing some answers in their ground game.

While it’s still somewhat early, senior Reggie Gallaspy and freshman Trent Pennix have both gotten their shot in the backfield and neither has really found much success. Gallaspy is averaging a pedestrian 3.4 yards per carry and Pennix is only churning out 3.1 per carry.

With Ryan Finley putting up big numbers weekly, NC State needed to find balance in their offense with a solid run game. Against UVA, Ricky Person brough that, and more.

Even former Wolfpacker and future NFL Hall of Famer Torry Holt was impressed with the young man…

Freshman Ricky Person getting some juice going in the @PackFootball run game #ACCFootball

— Torry Holt (@BigGame81) September 29, 2018

For Person, this performance was personal. While he sat out with injuries over the first two weeks, he heard all the talk of how NC State couldn’t run the ball this season.

“It meant a lot for the running game to be productive. We’ve been taking a lot of criticism. Everybody trying to say we can’t run the ball. We played with a little chip on our shoulder. ‘Let’s show people we can run the ball.’” said Person after the game.

But Person didn’t take all the credit for himself…

“If it wasn’t for the offensive line, I wouldn’t have had the incredible game I had today.” he said

Even Ryan Finley couldn’t help himself from getting in on the Person hype…

“Shout out to Ricky Person.” said Finley. “That was a long time coming. It was exciting to see him break out like that. He’s really consistent. He’s a big body and runs really hard. You saw him break some tackles today, which is awesome to see. He’s physical and has some moves too. He’s a balance of both.”

While one game isn’t going to give Person a lock on the backfield duties just yet, we expect that he and Gallaspy start to be very close in total carries over the next few weeks. And if this keeps up, we believe Person could take over the lion’s share down the stretch.